Part II
She felt like a gutted pumpkin, watching as her insides rotted while trying to ignore the pangs of vacancy that rattled her hollow body. There was so much of her that felt frozen. She walked through the hallways at school, her conscious separated from the rest of her. The sound of teenage chatter drowned into an annoying hum. Girls were gossiping about boys they liked, guys were bragging about chicks they’d banged over the weekend. Thoughts of prom and graduation hung over the school like a blanket of ignorance. The world that lived among the dead.
Every time she passed Ms. Calendar’s classroom, cold would consume her whole.
I did that, she thought miserably. I allowed that to happen.
Logically, Buffy knew nothing was black and white. She knew that she hadn’t forced Angel to snap the woman’s neck, no more than she’d forced Jenny Calendar to be in the school building after hours. None of the circumstances surrounding her death could actually be placed at the Slayer’s feet. She knew that.
But Giles didn’t know that. He might say he did, even believe he did, but his eyes told a different story. A sadness so ingrained that it had nearly manifested into a separate entity that now wore his face and bore his name. Similarly, Willow acted as though she had lost her best friend. She took no joy in constructing lesson plans for the class she had taken over, nor did she seem to care how the material was presented as long as the students learned something.
And Xander...if anyone blamed her, completely blamed her, it was Xander.
It was all undeserved, Buffy knew. Ms. Calendar’s death couldn’t have been predicted, even if they knew on some unspoken level that Angel wouldn’t be content simply to murder fish and send her messages through those he sired. No, Angel wanted her to bleed. He needed to make sure she felt the physical punch of all the bruises his ego had sustained while harbored to a soul. She knew from Giles’s research that Angel reveled in the psychological mind games, perhaps more so than he did in the actual kill. She knew it. She had known it. And yet, she did nothing but rock herself back and forth and whisper to her own tormented soul that this couldn’t possibly be her life.
Imagining the kind, gentle man as a brutal killer, even if she knew they were separate entities entirely, left her thoroughly gutted. How foolish she had been. How utterly naive she’d been to think that a relationship with Angel could work, especially with the intensity of the passion between them.
The passion, however, had always niggled at her as tainted. She hadn’t known it to say so, of course. After all, Angel was the first major love in her life that wasn’t platonic. Angel was the first love in her life that had gone beyond the casual glances and the flirtatious smiles. Angel was the first love in her life that had expanded to that realm of adulthood. Therefore, the tainted passion she’d always sensed was ignored and translated instead as something normal for a girl exploring her first relationship. She remembered feeling it the night she gave him her virginity. Feeling the hurt in the bottom of her stomach that she had mistaken for nerves. The erratic pounding of her heart that she had attributed to the near-death experience she owned up to Drusilla, that blonde bitch, and Spike.
Buffy had spent nights tormenting herself about her decisions following her and Angel’s escape. Had they not been confronted with death, would she have consented to sex? Probably. Eventually. Her relationship with Angel had been physical from the get-go, and as enamored as she’d been with his anguished soul and puppy eyes, sex was simply the next step. She’d loved him; there was no greater gift that she could give the man she loved than herself.
Just as there was no way to know that this would happen. No way at all.
Only a part of her had known. A part of her had sensed something terrible would happen. She’d simply ignored it, not wanting to allow fear to ruin the only perfect love she’d ever know. And in allowing herself to forgo precaution, she’d gotten Jenny Calendar killed.
After those horrible things she’d said. Those terrible things she’d said.
Look, I know you feel bad about what happened and I just wanted to say...good. Keep it up.
If nothing else, she’d never forgive herself for that. For harboring a grudge against Ms. Calendar in those last, agonizing days. For placing Giles in the position to choose sides—to respect his loyalty to the Slayer, or find solace with his heart’s desire. Buffy’s blind prejudice against the teacher had kept Giles from having a few precious weeks left with the woman. Hell, perhaps her blind prejudice also shared a part in Ms. Calendar’s death. She’d never know.
Now in her place, all she had were words.
Words, words, words.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t kill him for you...for her...when I had the chance.
As though the world could still rotate on the pledge of sorry, no matter how heartfelt.
I wasn’t ready.
She wasn’t ready, and Angel knew that. He’d known that from the first night, when she’d pleaded with him to remember who he was. To seek out that small part of him still drenched in soul. God, she was so guileless. So duped. From the beginning, her girlish fantasies had steered common sense. Angel had no trouble remembering who he was. Who he really was.
Angel was the creature that hunted her now. The vampire that tortured her friends to get to her. Angel was the thing that had waited for liberation beneath the mask. The thing that had clawed its way through a soul, and sought freedom through a lover’s embrace of mocked sensuality.
That night would be forever marred in her eyes. There was nothing but pain now. Nothing but the shadow of the girl that had believed in miracles.
She went through life as though looking through someone else’s eyes. Only days had passed since Ms. Calendar was found in Giles’s bed, and it already felt as though she had aged years in wisdom if not emotional growth. Letting go of Angel was no longer a task—it was something she looked forward to. He’d ruined her life; he’d helped her ruin the lives of others.
But letting go of him, however emancipating, didn’t make the pain go away. It was all encompassing; the weight of her sins. The scope of her crimes—the things she’d done against those she loved for the sake of a man who didn’t deserve her. No tortured soul was worth this.
Should have seen it. God, I should have seen it.
But she hadn’t. And here she was.
There was nowhere to go. The factory was gone, but the vampires in it had survived. She didn’t need to see them to know it—proof surfaced around every corner she turned. The body count was still on the steady increase. Residual Angel-tinglies followed her everywhere she went. She was almost certain that he or his henchmen were keeping watch on her house at night. The window she used to keep slightly ajar in case Angel wanted to visit was now securely latched. Another security measure atop revoking his invitation to her home.
Angel had already been in her bedroom one too many times.
Nighttime now. Patrol. Searching for the hidden. Buffy expelled a deep breath and kicked at a rock, frowning as her eyes landed on a headstone that had evidently been dismantled overnight. The name James Lee Harvey scrawled across three large, sledges of stone.
Unfortunate name, she thought cynically. Not worth smashing the thing over, but okay.
She could understand the need for destruction, though. Things would be so much simpler if she found the same pleasure in beating on punching bags. She didn’t. She couldn’t even fool herself into mentally pasting Angel’s face on the heads of her opponents. She wanted his blood, and he knew it. So he stayed away and sent others after her. He was waiting her out. Hoping her hatred for him wavered for the want of the good ole days so she would be just as love struck and clueless the next time he wanted to murder one of her friends.
The next time...
There would be no next time. She’d screwed up, yeah, but there would be no next time.
The next time, Angel would be dust. A memory. And yeah, she might shed a few tears and mourn the loss of the man he could never fully be, but she wouldn’t let it defeat her. She would not be broken.
There was nothing left to lose.
Strange how fast lives could change. Buffy sniffed and wiped at her eyes, irritated to find herself crying. Tears were for wimps. She couldn’t face Angel if she was a wimp. If she was remembering things the way they used to be, before he started jonesing for human blood and planning the general ruin of her life.
At the end of the day, there is no running from the truth, she thought, turning the corner to leave the graveyard. Nothing tonight. Another night of nothing. Three this week. Three in a row, but she’d keep going. The night she didn’t show would be the night that he did.
She didn’t want to go by Jenny Calendar’s grave. Buffy didn’t want the reminder of what she had done. Of her foul, bloody crime.
And the tears kept coming. She kept walking, and they kept coming. By the time she stopped, she was in the park. The park where she’d seen Angel talking to Dru forever ago. God, if she’d only known.
If I’d only paid attention.
She hadn’t seen anything beyond her jealousy that night. What foolish sentiment.
Yet the crack in her spirit seemed to get wider rather than smaller. She couldn’t quite convince herself of her own resolutions. Whatever she was fighting for had left a hole in her chest.
My fault. My fault. All of this is my fault.
And then she couldn’t handle it. Sniffling in tears that demanded freedom. Warring the screaming teenager inside her that didn’t deserve the hell she’d put herself through. The woman she’d watched Giles bury as he wiped at his eyes and attempted valiantly to look brave when he was devastated.
Her friends were broken pieces of the people they once were, and it was all her fault.
Buffy couldn’t hold it in anymore. She found her way to the swing set and sat, curling her hand around the chain as the ground beneath her swayed. The world was a collage of torn photographs. The Hellmouth had never been this for her, not even when the Master sampled her throat.
She ached. Not just a feeling—feelings she could handle.
Sobs broke through her, spilling into the embrace of night.
Never had she known pain like this.
*~*~*
There wasn’t enough alcohol on God’s green earth to drown out the harsh light of reality. And bugger it, he’d tried. Every shot he downed seemed to have the reverse effect. He couldn’t get drunk—getting drunk for vamps was a commitment of the body and mind. He had to immerse himself in liquor and convince his consciousness to let the world sleep for just a little while.
The world, however, refused to sleep. He found no clemency from the void eating away at his insides, and therefore left without putting too much of an effort into all out inebriation. There was nowhere to go, of course. Not the factory, not even the mansion that Angelus had discovered. A pretty little place with an open-ceiling in the garden, naturally leading to delicious daydreams of shoving the grand sod into an open stream of sunshine.
It never lasted, though. His thoughts, more and more frequently, came back to the Slayer. That bloody brutal bitch that had ruined everything.
The past few nights had garnered empty results. She wasn’t where she was supposed to be, that Slayer. He’d prowl the cemeteries a few hours after she’d gone on her nightly patrol, visit the Bronze with the hope of finding her chatting with her friends so that her humiliation would be complete upon death. He wanted to strip her of her power; he wanted to make a public mockery of everything she was and leave little room for doubt that the little girl was nothing that the legend depicted. That bloody awful fable in her honor that instilled fear in demons worldwide because some little mousy blonde had bested the Master.
Bloody Master. From what Spike had heard, the bloke hadn’t even tasted her properly. A quick bite, as though fangs were made with venom, and he left her to drown in a puddle beneath the ground. No sodding wonder the girl had survived, with or without the wonder lungs of her best male chum.
The Slayer deserved none of the credit for axing the Master. For leaving her alive, the old sod had it coming.
Didn’t stop Darla from whining, though. Not much did.
Christ, he deserved so much more than this. So much more than the half-existence he’d been living. If Dru wouldn’t love him, he’d find a woman who would. A bloody century was enough time spent playing slave to her mastership.
His mind flashed to her branded pussy, her fingers massaging her folds as she detailed how Angelus had made his mark. How deeply his she was.
Spike snarled at the night, his arm lashing out at a tether ball in the park. The park. The bloody park? How had he ended up here? Didn’t matter, he supposed. One wrong turn in Sunnydale could render a man lost entirely.
Then a scent hit his nostrils, and his demon roared to life.
Slayer.
It didn’t take long to spot her. She was seated at a swing set, her back to him, one hand curled around the chord that fastened the seat to the upper beam. From the way her head was bowed, he suspected she was either crying or praying, and since he didn’t know the girl to be overly pious, the first was the better guess.
The demon snapped. He couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to. With a low, predatory growl, he stalked forward, eyes slanted and primed on his target. He watched as she stiffened with awareness, her tight little body drawing up as a long sigh slid past her lips. Resignation. Yeah, she’d want him to pity her. Wouldn’t bloody happen. He was a slayer-slayer, and she’d fucked with him one too many times to continue the dance.
I’d rather be fightin’ you anyway.
Mutual.
Stupid chit. If she’d only kept her knickers up...
“Go away, Spike,” she said tiredly, not turning around, not trying to mask the tears stifling her voice. “I’m in no mood.”
That was it. A roar that would make the devil cower tore through his throat, and he bounded forward in a hazed blur. His hands clamped around her shoulders, ripping her away from the swing with a bark of triumph. Yes, yes, this was what he’d needed. He needed the little bitch to bleed.
Buffy made a half-hearted attempt to get up that didn’t take. He fisted a handful of her hair and sent her face first into the bar of the swing set.
“In no bloody mood?” he snarled, backhanding her with a growl. “You fucking conceited bitch! You don’ care about whose lives you destroy, do you? Your Watcher? You friends? Your mum? Hell, even a vamp you could give less than two pisses about. They’re all the same. Li’l Miss Buff got her rocks off. Doesn’ matter how many people she has to go through to do it.”
Her eyes shone upon him with surprise and sadness. But there was no fight. There was no fight in her at all. Ordinarily, this would have bothered him. He liked his slayers with a little fight in them—he wanted them a full participant of the dance.
Buffy was different. Buffy had ruined him. Spike wasn’t going soft on her because of his own rules when it came to killing slayers. She’d broken the rules already.
She was the reason for everything.
“You bloody miserable...” He kicked at her harshly, his foot finding the soft underside of her stomach as she attempted to crawl to her feet. “‘S your fault. It’s all your fault.”
The Slayer gasped and collapsed once more, her head colliding into the legs of the swing set. He seized her by the back of the neck and slammed her face first into the steel bar again. And again. And again. Stubborn bint wouldn’t pass out, but then, he didn’t want her unconscious. He wanted her awake and with him for every delicious second of her long overdue demise.
“But you don’ care about that, do you?” he demanded, circling her with a furious sneer. He seized her by the shoulders once more and dragged her up the length of his body until she was at eye level. His insides rocked with the flood of emotion that clashed when their gazes met, but he shrugged it off just as easily, throwing her to the ground the next second with a triumphant huff. “You got what you were askin’ for. You got Angelus to stick his dick in you. Was it worth it, pet?” She was on all fours now, trying to climb to her feet again. Bloody chit didn’t learn. He twirled her around and backhanded her another time, the scent of her blood becoming a bit too much for his eager fangs.
Still, the demon wasn’t done. The demon wanted so much more.
“I hope it was worth it,” he snarled. “I’ve seen that wanker deflower too many young girlies. They scream an’ he laughs an’ makes it hurt a li’l more. Was it like that for you? Was it what you thought it’d be? Was it what you dreamed fuckin’ a vampire would be like? Did he make it hurt?”
“Spike,” the Slayer gasped, reaching again for the bar of the swing set. The way she said his name nearly lent him pause. It wasn’t a plea for mercy. It wasn’t even a spiteful growl. It was just his name. Just Spike.
It didn’t take. Whatever game she was playing at, it didn’t take.
The fact that she wanted to dally with him only made it worse. Spike roared and fell on top of her, straddling her waist and twisting her so that she was facing him. And then it all went loose. What little he’d held back burst through the last of the floodgates, and the monster snarled in victory. He drew an arm back, smacking her hard across the face, watching gleefully as her head rocked with impact. Her skin was spoiled with bruises, her flesh was split open and bleeding.
He felt a pang of something, but brushed it aside.
“‘S because of you,” he spat, between punches. “You ruined my life. You stupid, callous bitch! You’re the reason she’s gone. You’re the one who took her from me!”
He caught the whiff of her tears but didn’t stop. So what if she cried? He’d cried enough for the both of them for everything she’d done.
“You—”
Then her lips parted, and the world came tumbling down.
“I’m sorry.”
Spike’s fists halted in midair, his chest heaving for oxygen that he didn’t need. Strange how two words could unmake the fabric of the universe. She wasn’t pleading. He knew what pleading sounded like, and she wasn’t pleading. Nor was she saying something for the sake of calming him. There was resignation in her voice—as though she knew this was the end, and she needed to cleanse herself of her crimes.
There was nothing to her words but truth.
“What?” he rasped, incredulous.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, tears leaking down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.”
Then there was nothing else but the heavy weight of her sobs, and Spike was at a loss. His outrage deflated, the red that had clouded his gaze blinking out of existence. It was as though he’d been living in a dream for weeks, and now the fog was gone and he saw with perfect clarity. The girl crying in his arms was an innocent. A true innocent.
Somewhere in the midst of outrage, he’d forgotten that she’d lost just as much as he had.
Spike had absolutely no idea what to do with himself. The thrill of her blood had lost its appeal. He watched as she trembled beneath him, rocking with hard, raucous sobs that commanded her entire being to sustain life. There was something there—a chord that the man inside had tried to bury, and with such simplicity, she had dug it up and exploited it without being any the wiser.
Bugger it.
Before he knew what he was doing, he gathered her in his arms and settled on the soft earth, rocking her gently as she cried.
Whether or not she was truly with him, he didn’t know. She didn’t fight him. Didn’t even seem to register the change of scenery—the fine line between violence and comfort. It was for the better, in truth. He was too lost to consider the larger implications of what he was doing. That, innocent or not, she was still the Slayer and he was still a vampire. There should be no solace between enemies.
“Shhh, love,” he murmured softly, stroking her bloodied hair. “‘S all right. Jus’ let it out.”
From tormentor to pacifier. His life was such a bloody joke.
How long they remained like that, he didn’t know. It seemed that centuries passed before her tears stifled and she remembered who she was. What’s more, who she was with. He knew it for the way her calming breaths grew heavier. How her heart began pounding all over again, how the rush of her blood intensified in potency. She pulled back after a few minutes and met his eyes, her own raw and swollen from crying. Her face was so open, so vulnerable, and for a second, he forgot he didn’t need to breathe.
“I...ummm...” Buffy glanced down, just as puzzled as he was by the hands that held her. “Sorry,” she said awkwardly, pulling herself from his arms. If he wasn’t confused before, the pang of loss that stung his heart as she moved away from him hit the final nail in his proverbial coffin.
Had he truly comforted the Slayer? The thorn in his side? The bane of his existence?
God, he really had.
“I’m okay now,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I...thanks. You wanted to fight? I can fight.”
The lack of conviction in her voice notwithstanding, Spike found himself at an unbeatable loss. The drive for her blood had vanished. Temporary side-effect of having a soft, female body in his arms after so long; it had to be. There were no other explanations. But he didn’t want to kill her tonight. He didn’t want her blood on his hands after this—after this bizarre, but somehow precious thing they’d shared.
Not tonight. They could forget they were enemies tonight.
“Nah,” he retorted, waving a dismissive hand. “I got the full of it outta my system.”
Her defensive stance faltered. “Oh. Okay.”
The awkwardness between them was magnanimous.
“Bugger it.” Spike sighed and cast a hand through his blond locks, flashing her a sheepish glance. “You’re a bloody vamp beacon, Slayer. Lemme walk you home, then we’ll forget this happened, yeh?”
Her eyes didn’t trust him. Wise eyes, those. “You...I thought you came here to kill me.”
“Not t’night. We’ll call it off t’night.”
“And pick up tomorrow?”
God-willing.
“Yeh.” He nodded, half-believing it, wholly hoping he could after this. His life was already too confusing to add in an emotion less than hatred for the Slayer. “Lemme walk you home.”
“‘Cause I’m a vamp beacon?”
“Yeh.”
“And you care...?”
“Because if a vamp’s gonna soddin’ off you, it’s gonna be me, dammit.”
She drew in a deep breath and winced. “I...I can’t go home like this,” she said, gesturing to her bloodied, swollen face. “My mom...she doesn’t know about the slaying. And I don’t think that this is the way I want her to find out.”
Sod all.
He knew what he should have said. He should have shrugged, told her it was her loss, and went on about his business. Why he didn’t was anyone’s guess. There was just something about her standing there that struck him in a way he’d never been struck before. The girl who had ruined his life in a moment of ignorance, bleeding and bruised because that’s the way he’d wanted her. And now she was an outcast from her own home because of his violent hands.
I don’ care, he told himself.
Trouble was, though, he did. As long as he wasn’t killing her tonight, he could give in and care about what happened to her as well.
But just tonight.
“Right,” he said, stepping forward and gently closing a hand around her arm, startled when she didn’t pull away. The girl was seriously off her game tonight. Any decent slayer would have planted a stake in his heart for what he’d done. Not this girl, and it wasn’t because he’d stopped just a hair away from killing her. There was something else. Something he didn’t want to see; something that drew him in all the same. “Come on, then.”
“Come on where?”
“We’ll find a place.”
“What?”
“Your redheaded friend? Can you stay with her?”
“On a school night? Shyeah.”
Plus her parents likely had eyes and knew how to use a phone. He’d rendered the girl homeless.
The Watcher was also out of the question. Spike would be dust the minute the old man set his eyes on the girl. Granted, the bloke was human and therefore fallible, but he’d had a front row seat to the beating of Angelus. If prompted, the Slayer’s Watcher could be downright frightening.
Sod it. This was his mess; he’d clean it up.
“Yeh. Okay.” He tugged on her arm, and she neared him tentatively. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m gonna find you a place to clean up an’ rest.”
“Why?”
Bloody good question.
“‘Cause I am. Shut up.”
He barked it with more ferocity than he felt. The emotions tackling him were too confusing to deal with right now. He didn’t need to go a round of twenty questions with the girl whose blood stained his knuckles.
There were many things he didn’t need tonight. Too many.
And all of them revolved around the girl at his side. The girl that was trusting him without cause.
He had no idea what had happened. It terrified him. And the sooner the night was over, the better. This interlude from reality was too much.
He couldn’t wait for daybreak.
TBC |
